High School Football: North Penn faces stiff challenge in unbeaten CB South

If you’re head coach Dick Beck, you were on the sidelines watching your North Penn High football team lose to Central Bucks South in the Knights’ final contest as a member of the Suburban One League’s National Conference (at least until the next realignment).

As it turns out, that loss was the last time North Penn lost a conference game.

Since, as a member of the SOL’s Continental Conference, North Penn has gone a perfect 30-0.

But Friday night (7:30) at North Penn High’s Crawford Stadium, it is believed that incredible streak has a better-than-good chance to come to an end - at the hands of none other than Central Bucks South.

South, which came to the Continental along with North Penn back in 2008, has, like every other Continental member, watched the Knights roll to four straight conference crowns (and add a district championship or two and a trip to the state final along the way) in four-plus seasons.

But while this year’s North Penn team (3-2, 2-0) has shown some vulnerability, the Titans (5-0, 4-0) have demonstrated nothing but dominance in their first five games.

They are averaging 47 points per game and have not been held under 42 points in any one game while winning by an average of 31 points per contest.

South’s head coach, Dave Rackovan, was coaching at Princeton University when South last defeated the Knights. But he’s been coaching long enough to know a win over the Knights in conference play is rare, indeed.

“North Penn has one of the best programs in the state,” Rackovan said, “and it’s great to have an opportunity to beat them. But every year North Penn is a well-coached and very physical football team.

“It’s just real exciting to be in the conversation (as a team capable of beating North Penn). I don’t think anybody expected us to be in it.”

For sure, the Titans were not a team with an overabundance of starters returning. But a couple of surprises have vaulted them into the championship conversation.

The first, and most impactful, has been the play of sophomore sensation Josh Adams, a running back who has done nothing but run for 1,094 yards and 21 touchdowns this year, while dazzling everyone who has seen him.

“As a freshman he was a talented player and one of the premier players in the freshman league,” Rackovan said. “But you just didn’t know how he was going to react at the next level.

“It’s been a surprise he’s been able to go so quickly. He’s still a young man and he’s made some young mistakes, but he has real acceleration, good vision and is a good finisher. He does a lot of things instinctively. Plus, he’s a one-rep learner.”

While Adams has caused jaws to drop all over Bucks County, Rackovan said one of the biggest reasons for the Titans’ bolt out of the gate has been the play of quarterback Jon Pileggi.

A first-year starter, Pileggi was another player of which little was expected. But all he’s done is manage every game, kept mistakes to a minimum and complete passes at an unnatural rate (55-for-67, an eye-popping 82 percent).

“Our quarterback has a lot to do with where we are,” Rackovan said. “He has complete command of the offense, he’s very efficient and very poised and he doesn’t try and do too much. He learned a lot from Matt Johns (former South quarterback now at Virginia). He waited for his chance and he’s made the most of it.”

With those two players as the springboard, South has jumped into the Continental consciousness and become, in many minds, a team capable of ending an amazing streak of consistency.

“When you play North Penn, you have to be concerned with everything,” Rackovan said. “They are physical, they’re rarely out of place and they’re downhill on you right away.

“They don’t have a lot of weaknesses, they never do. To beat them, you have to be sound in every aspect of the game. They’re going to probe you for a weakness. And if they find it, they’re going to hurt you.”

Rackovan added, above all, the Titans must stop the Knights running game.“They can hurt you with the pass,” the coach said, “but the run is where they start. If you can’t stop it, you’re in for a long night.”

Rackovan is hopeful the upstart Titans can be the team to end the streak. But he knows it won’t be as easy as it was watching the Titans storm to a 5-0 start.

“No matter how good you think you are or you think another team is,” Rackovan cautioned, “the Continental Conference championship always goes through Lansdale.”